This is all new to me...

Hey folks, just getting into hunting away from roads and need some help/advice on handling meat. I've been hunting deer since I was 13, but we've always just thrown the deer in the back of the truck and high tailed it back home. This year I plan to get away from the roads/crowds and see what I can find off the beaten path. I've got an October elk hunt in New Mexico as well as an October mule deer hunt in New Mexico. My main questions are:


1. Is it possible to cool meat too quickly? For the elk hunt I would quarter/hang meat in the shade and get it to a cooler as soon as possible. For the deer hunt, I was thinking I'd quarter and get the meat on ice as soon as possible (while keeping it dry).

2. What do you do with meat when you have no shade, especially when it's hot? I'm hunting deer in Southeast NM and some mesquite bushes are about all I will have. I've seen some guys who build a stand of wood and cover it with a tarp, but I won't have access to much wood (if any) and if it is as warm as it has been in recent years I'm going to be racing the clock. Some years I bow hunt and the September portion of deer season can hit 100 degrees.

Thanks in advance,

-Guy

Hi NMGuy, hello from Socorro.

Yes you can *think* you cooled your meat too quickly. Let me explain - get them cool as best you can, even if it is warm out, in the shade BEFORE you put it in a cooler. I rushed a friend's cow elk since I could actually drive up to it by putting it in the cooler (With ice) after only letting it sit 30 minutes or so after quartering. It was still warm in parts and the cooler insulated those sections, resulting in some spoilage.

Where's your elk hunt?

Thanks Nuevo, that makes sense. If it is possible to cool too quickly, what is the solution in hot weather (if there is one)? As I mentioned, hanging the elk hunt won't be an issue. The deer hunt in Unit 32 is going to be basically impossible to hang the meat. It will basically go from animal to cooler (or truck). I found a spot that is roughly a 3 mile hike to get in, but the truck will be about 20 minutes from home.

I've got the muzzleloader elk hunt in unit 34. I had the second bow hunt there last year and found a lot of elk. This will be a different hunt since it won't be peak rut. Still trying to sort out the unit since the landscape changes so drastically with desert on the east/west and so many roads throughout the unit.

I would just try to minimize the amount of direct sun it gets and maximize air moving around it. You should be fine, especially compared to the experience of just throwing it in a truck. This spring or early winter I saw a guy in Socorro with a gutted oryx just sticking legs straight up in his truck bed. At least he was getting ice but I still cried a bit inside.

Make sure it gets uniformly cool once home. I've always wondered about 34. Good luck and let us know how it goes. I'm helping a friend on a bull hunt in 36, and cow hunting in 17 this year.

Thanks again.

Oh man, that Oryx story is rough. I see that often here in Roswell with deer and elk. The Texans will be stopped at a restaurant with a stiff deer/elk in the bed of the truck.

I don't have anything to compare it to, but 34 was a lot of fun last year. If you're the kind of person who wants to get away from the crowds and hunt large sections of roadless areas, 34 might be a bit frustrating. If you look at the unit with OnX maps there aren't many areas without roads. Oddly enough, I ended up hunting a spot that had the absolute easiest access yet nobody was hunting it. 34 is also one of the few units in the state where they have confirmed CWD in elk if I'm not mistaken.